Newark

March 2010 Newark (mp3)

From flickr:

"1. nine hours - copenhagen to newark
2. six hours - waiting at newark airport
3. six hours - newark to portland

I arrive in Newark. Inside the airport the air is warm and stale. Going outside means that I'll have to go through the tedious security check once more, but there's no way I'm going to stay in here that long.

Outside, I sit down on a bench and have a cigarette. To the right there's big group of young Danes from my same flight. If it's possible to turn off the brain in any way, I had definitely flipped that switch. Nothing looked beautiful, nothing looked the opposite of beautiful. Everything was just there, and I was just there, with absolutely no ambitions or energy to do anything but sit there and kill the time.

Eating might be good. I get up to go check if there's anything inside. As I'm walking to the entrance, I pass a trash can, with all kinds of people standing around, waiting to be picked up.

IS THAT A GUITAR IN THE TRASH CAN?

YES.

I think it's fair to say that I make a very conscious effort not to judge people or things too quickly, but I have to say, whoever puts a guitar in a trash can is a FOOL. Certainly not someone I'd be having dinner with. But in this moment, I was absolutely thrilled that this fool was here on the planet with me.

Aside from being wildly out of tune, the guitar seemed to be in fine shape. One of the tuning pegs broke as I tried to stretch the strings into some kind of playable sound. But I just made up some strange tuning that fit with the one string that couldn't be changed.

official.durtonstudio.com/newark.mp3

We had a nice time together. And once I remembered that eating might be a good idea, I left it there on the sidewalk, hoping one of those Danish kids would pick it up and get the whole group to do a singalong. "